Todd Boehly expressed his desire for a launch. Premier LeagueAll-Star match to provide funds EFL clubs.
At the SALT New York conference the new Chelsea owner said he hoped the “Premier League can take a bit of a lesson from American sports”And suggested a North vs South showdown, from which revenue could support the English football pyramid.
“Ultimately I hope the Premier League takes a little bit of a lesson from American sports,” the American entrepreneur, who also owns shares of the Los Angeles Dodgers in MLB and NBA franchise LA Lakers, said.
“And really starts to figure out, why don’t we do a tournament with the bottom four sports teams, why isn’t there an All-Star game?
“People are talking about more money for the pyramid, in the MLB All-Star game this year we made 200 million dollars from a Monday and a Tuesday.
“So we’re thinking we could do a North versus South All-Star game for the Premier League, for whatever the pyramid needed quite easily.”
When asked what his fellow football club owners think about the All-Star game idea, Boehly added: “Everyone likes the idea of more revenue for the league.
“I think there’s a real cultural aspect, I think evolution will come.”
Boehly’s consortium’s group (and comprising of Clearlake Capital, Mark Walter and Hansjoerg Wyss) agreed a deal to buy Chelsea in May.
The group is paying £2.5billion to buy Roman Abramovich’s shares and pledging a further £1.75billionn to invest in the club.
Thomas Tuchel, Chelsea’s Champions League winning manager, was sacked by the club’s new owners just six games into the Premier League season. He was replaced by former Brighton head coach Graham Potter.
Boehly admitted at the conference that Tuchel’s departure centred around the lack of a shared vision for the club.
“When you take over any business, you have to make sure you’re aligned with the people who are operating the business,” he said.
“Tuchel is obviously extremely talented and someone who had great success at Chelsea. Our vision was to find a manager who would be willing to work with us and a coach who would want to collaborate.
“There are a lot of walls to break down at Chelsea. Before, the first team and academy didn’t really share data, didn’t share information about where the top players were coming from.
“Our goal is to bring a team together, all of that needs to be a well-oiled machine. The reality of our decision was that we weren’t sure that Thomas saw it the same way we saw it. No one is right or wrong, we just didn’t have a shared vision for the future.
“It wasn’t about (defeat to Dinamo) Zagreb, it was about the shared vision for what we wanted Chelsea to look like. It wasn’t a decision that was made because of a single win or loss.
“It was a decision that we thought was the right vision for the club.”
Chelsea’s next fixture is against Red Bull Salzburg in the Champions LeagueOn Wednesday
(Photo: Getty Images).
